The theme of the race for mayor has thus far been twofold. One, will Rahm Emanuel be allowed to stay on the ballot, and two, will there be too many African Americans in the running effectively splitting the black vote all to pieces allowing Rahm to waltz in unopposed?

When we started this off a few months ago there were four black candidates. Rep. Danny Davis, former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, Reverend James Meeks, and the least known of the pack William “Doc” Walls.

Since then we’ve seen several of these candidates drop their bid, leaving two. First to fall was James Meeks and now the Sun-Times is reporting that Danny Davis has also given up his campaign and will be endorsing Carol Moseley Braun.Read more

My friend George Scoville, who works for the CATO Institute, asked a question that really does go to show the left’s hypocrisy. This time the question reveals a “feature” of Obamacare that tends to expose hypocrisy so large that an ambulance could drive through it. (See how I said “ambulance” there to keep with the whole medical theme?)

Scoville was issued a letter from his insurance carrier that informed him that new government regulations was forcing them to eliminate a whole bunch of non-prescription items that used to be eligible to be paid for by his Health Savings Account (HSA). The new rules are forcing the insured to go to a doctor to get a prescription for things like acid reducers, baby rash ointment, eye drops, feminine anti-fungal products, lice treatments and a whole bunch of other stuff.

So now Scoville and his fellow insured patients will have to go to a doctor to get a prescription for lice treatments? For stool softeners? The insured patients will have to make a $50 or $75 doctor appointment to have their insurance cover a $3 bottle of nasal spray?

For the entertainment industry’s practitioners of political correctness, 2010 was another banner year. Even as conservatives have made deserved headway in La La Land and other areas of the industry, there still aren’t enough conservatives to bring much needed patriotism, logic, and common sense to the scene. Sadly, the industry is still filled with those slavishly dedicated to anti-American tropes, left-wing blather, and self-hatred. From comic books, to music, to radio, TV and movies, PCism still runs rampant.

Without further ado, here are just a few examples of PCism from 2010 in music, TV, movies, and publishing. Certainly there are many more and these are not necessarily a “top ten,” but these examples do serve to show that PCism is not dead despite the Tea Party uprising, the growth of the conservative new media, and the resulting Republican tsunami from the midterm elections.

(In no particular order…)Movies and Actors

Who could forget the film Machette, starring Danny Trejo and directed by Robert Rodriguez? This one was a sort of pastiche of 1970s exploitation movies with a Mexican twist. The film was replete with White sherifs ruthlessly murdering pregnant Mexican immigrants, American businessmen working to keep Mexicans down, overpowering racism against Mexicans by white Americans and it all seemed intended to inflame militant Mexican nationalism and to goad illegal immigrants in America to put all the blame on white America. The creators claimed it was supposed to be just good, over-the-top fun but in the climate of racial tensions in America today it was as funny as a militant Mexican flavored attempt to start a race war.Read more

Does anyone on the left understand right and wrong? Do any of them understand that some things humans do are morally reprehensible or is everything relative? If we could find one that understands it, it certainly won’t be Colman McCarthy. We can say this because this week the former Washington Post columnist and current director for the farcical Washington-based “Center for Teaching Peace” said that he “admires” people who “join armies” and, revealing his moral ignorance, he said he even admires those that join the Taliban’s “army.”

In a recent Washington Post piece meant to convince people that the U.S. Army is evil and that ROTC programs should be eliminated from our nation’s universities, McCarthy made the startling admission of his admiration for the Taliban’s murderous minions. And, like most leftists, he tried to dress up his admiration for immoral actions by cloaking it in the left’s favorite vehicle for misdirection: nuance.

Like most leftists McCarthy tries to split hairs saying that he isn’t “anti-soldier” by being anti-U.S. Army. He says he “admires soldiers” but just hates their work. Of course, it isn’t possible to love the troops and hate everything they do, but that is a leftist’s illogic writ large.Read more

OK, Illinois Republicans, a great opportunity to return the Illinois GOP back to some accountability to YOU is at hand. The Illinois legislature is about to enter its own lame duck session that will run from January 3 to January 11. During this session we have a chance to get a law passed that has quite a lot of support. It is a law that will return the Illinois GOP’s planning committee to your hands via direct elections of its members.

We’ve talked about SB600 many times in the past, of course. This bill would change the way the Illinois State GOP fills the seats on its state central committee, the group responsible for planning the way the state party operates, arrives at its goals, and its assembles its policies. Currently central committee members are placed on the committee by a vote of the Republican ward chiefs, township bosses and committeemen throughout the state. SB600 would change that to provide for the actual voters to elect central committee members instead of allowing the party insiders to appoint them.Read more

Tom Mannis of Chicago News Bench gave me a shout letting me know that he made a video of all the banner he’s made to top his blog, Chicago News Bench.

Them thar is a buncha banners!

By the way, be sure and scroll down to get a look at all the links to the great Illinois blogs and such under the Illini Alliance icon to the left of your screen. There are some fantastic blogs and websites listed there, Chicago News Bench being one of them.

In ancient times a soothsayer could make a good living divining the meaning of chicken bones and shiny pebbles. The modern version is usually some journalist who, looking back over his shoulder, decides he can predict the future. These are often the same people who fail to predict the outcome of elections, sports team rankings, and, of course, the weather.

Who, for example, could have predicted that, in November 2009, the world would be treated to thousands of emails between a handful of utterly deceitful “climate scientists” who were rigging the data in computer models to ensure that everyone remained scared to death of “global warming”?

The result was the breakdown of the 2009 United Nations Conference of Parties 15 climate conference in Copenhagen. This year a COP 16 in Cancun tossed out any pretence about “global warming” and went straight for a scheme to get wealthy nations to transfer trillions to mostly corrupt ones.Read more

If there never was a story that explains how unions are really little else but a criminal extortion racket, the story by James Ahearn in the New Jersey Began Record helps explain it for us. Ahearn’s piece headlined “For Backstage Labor, Rich Rewards,” informs us that some stagehands in New York theater make upwards to $422,000 a year in salary — and that doesn’t include benefits.

These positions are not as highly skilled as brain surgeons, to be sure, yet these guys make hundreds of thousands a year to move chairs, rearrange scenery, raise curtains, and what have you. Why the absurdly outsized pay scale? Threats of strikes shutting down Broadway and its multi-million dollar industry is why.

Ahearn reveals that one mere stagehand makes $422,599 a year, plus $107,445 in benefits and deferred compensation, another makes $290,000, and two carpenters and two electricians made about $400,000 a year with benefits to work the theaters of New York.Read more

Like most leftists, former Washington Post blogger David Weigel just doesn’t get Sarah Palin. Weigel took a look at the year-end contributions from the Political Action Committees (PACs) sponsored by Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin and what he saw there baffled him. While Weigel thought he understood the “strategy” of Romney’s donations, he admitted that he just couldn’t understand Palin’s.

Weigel took a look at the Federal Elections Commission’s emerging reporting records of the two GOP player’s campaign donations. Weigel figured that Romney was doling out his campaign donations in key areas and to key candidates, all obviously meant to help his likely run for the GOP nomination for president in 2012. So Weigel thought Ronmey had a discernible “strategy” in his PAC donations.Read more

One reality of the 2010 midterm election is that voters have rejected the current agenda of President Barack Obama. Uncontrolled government spending with its repetitious forays into the private market has not settled well with the American people. The president’s promise of decreased unemployment after huge government spending did not come to fruition as promised, and as expected, people began to grumble. For those that are fighting the liberal agenda of the Obama administration, between demented Democrats in denial on one hand and weeping Republicans on the other, it is hard to keep the full reality of what is taking place in perspective. However, since the last couple of years have brought home the truth that elections have consequences, we should be very accurate about the recent midterm election and what it means and what it does not mean for the future of the political parties and this country.

The historical rejection of Democrats can be seen as more than a product of liberal politicians’ unwavering support of such plans as Obama’s compulsory healthcare program, apocalyptic government spending, or even his backward mentality on national security issues. Yes, the American people opposed Democrats because their policies were bad for the country. However, they came out in droves and voted them out of office in historic numbers because of the Democrats’ hostile stance toward anyone who questioned what they were attempting to do. As Barack Obama’s policies moved further and further away from the traditional economic and moral blueprint of this country, the voice of the American people rose in opposition. It was then that Democrats decided to forcefully turn their backs on voters to push the liberal agenda of the Obama administration through.Read more

As 2010 draws to a close, I wanted to share a few reflections on what we’ve achieved together during the past year.

I began the year as a candidate for governor in Illinois running on a platform of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, and traditional American values. We captured the votes of more than 110,000 Illinoisans, but fell short of the Republican nomination.

Like many of you, I believed the fight we waged against the underperforming Illinois establishment had not come to an end. With your encouragement, we set out to re-launch For the Good of Illinois and introduced For the Good of Illinois PAC.Read more

Word has run like wildfire through the Internet that former GOP Senate candidate for Delaware, Christine O’Donnell, is under investigation for misuse of campaign funds. O’Donnell flatly refutes the claims and says that these rumors were started by operatives of the establishment of both parties in Delaware, rumors meant to prevent her from ever running for office again.

In an email to supporters, O’Donnell and her staffers said that claims she is under investigation are nothing but “unfounded rumors” and she has not been contacted by officials about an investigation. She also vowed to fully cooperate if authorities do contact her.

O’Donnell’s campaign manager, Matt Moran, claims that the rumors were started by a disgruntled former campaign staffer and pushed by “the George Soros-funded CREW” organization in an attempt to “intimidate and threaten Christine, even after the election.”

Years after most Americans retire, in fact years after the federal retirement age of 68, more than 100 U.S. Postal Workers in their 90s are still getting 75 percent of their salaries (tax free, yet) of federal workers compensation payments instead of having been graduated to the cheaper retirement payments at 60 percent of their salaries.

This is classic government waste.

Jim McElhatton of the Washington Times gives us this tale of government foolishness and waste as Senator Susan Collins (R, Maine) scolds the Post Office for its failed administration of the issue.Read more

Father Thomas Mulcrone made an ass of himself at the funeral for fallen Chicago Firefighter Edward Stringer on Tuesday, Dec. 28 by delivering some union-like hectoring of the city from the pulpit during his dead comrade’s eulogy. Mulcrone’s union-centric address was as disgusting a display as I can imagine and at the most inappropriate time imaginable.

Sadly Stringer, a 12-year veteran Chicago Fireman, perished in a fire a few days before Christmas when a roof of an abandoned building collapsed on him and several other firemen. One other fireman, Corey Ankum, was also killed that terrible day.

At the funeral on Tuesday morning, Father Mulcrone, a Catholic Priest attached to the Chicago Fire Department for some 25 years, launched into some finger waving at all those people who claim that Firemen don’t deserve the money they make.Read more

As the latest Wikileaks saga unfolded I couldn’t help but recall the scene in the film Sneakers where Martin “Marty” Bishop (Robert Redford) and Cosmo (Ben Kingsley) discuss the “code breaker.”

Cosmo: There’s a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it’s not about who’s got the most bullets. It’s about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think… it’s all about the information!Read more

On Wednesday, December 29, John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute will appear on Fox 32 WFLD, Good Day Chicago at 7:25am to discuss problems with and alternatives to Quinn’s crazy borrowing plan. Please tune in. Important details below:

GOVERNOR QUINN’S CRAZY BORROWING PLAN MAKES STATE’S PROBLEMS WORSE:
Debt-driven plan is short sighted and will lead to worsening budget pressure in the coming years

CHICAGO – Governor Quinn’s borrowing plan will worsen the state’s fiscal health, not improve it, notes the nonpartisan Illinois Policy Institute. The independent think tank points out that while borrowing now might give the state some temporary breathing room, the funding of core government services will be threatened in the future as the cost of debt service mounts.Read more

In 1997 a Brooklyn teacher was accused of attempting to molest a sixth-grade girl at PS 138. As it happened, he admitted the behavior, but no criminal charges were filed when all was said and done. Still one would think the fact that he inappropriately fondled a teen should be enough to get him fired from his teaching position. But then again, in New York you can’t even fire a child molester if he happens to be a teachers union member.

Thanks to the fact that it is nearly impossible to fire a teacher, this lowlife has been drawing his almost $100,000-a-year salary to do nothing. You heard that right, to do nothing.

You see, even as the union agrees that this pedophile isn’t fit for a classroom, the union still won’t agree to his being fired. So, teacher Roland Pierre sits in a “rubber room” five days a week and does nothing and he’s paid $97,101yearly to do so. And that doesn’t include benefits.Read more

Sometimes standing up for the Constitution seems a bit annoying, especially in the case of violent felon Mrs. Carol Bond. Fortunately, standing for the Constitution here doesn’t necessarily release a horrible woman into freedom, but it does help to spotlight some unconstitutional federal overreach. In this case, it also centers on the Tenth Amendment, or the reserved powers clause.

The violent felon in question, Mrs. Bond, was found guilty of using various chemicals to perpetrate an acid attack on her husband’s girlfriend. She was convicted of mixing several noxious chemicals and throwing them on her rival causing minor burns. Instead of just charging her on state charges of assault and battery or other such things, the federal government decided to step in and prosecute her for violating a treaty governing chemicals signed with foreign governments.

Mrs. Bond’s lawyers have brought this case before the Supreme Court of the United States claiming that due to the Tenth Amendment she cannot be tried for violating foreign treaties because the incident happened inside the borders of an American state and, therefore, her home state has jurisdiction and the federal government does not.Read more

The New York Times had a small story that it likely thought was just an amusing little tale of a quirky government program from Los Angeles. Centered on the gift shop run by the L.A County Coroner’s Department, the Times indulged such lines as “we’re dying for your business,” and headlined the piece “Dealing in Death, and Trying to Make a Living.” But one little part of the story should serve as a warning not to believe any politician or government hack that says their office or project will “make money.”

According to the Times the gift shop at the L.A. Coroner’s office was initially started in the early 1990s when a secretary working for the county noticed that mugs and T-shirts with the county coroner’s logo on them were popular items at forensics conferences. The county thought that a gift shop would be a moneymaker and when the coroner’s office floated the idea to the county government it claimed that the money the shop would make would pay for an anti-drunken driving course for teens.

In the film “The Devil’s Advocate,” Satan poses as a powerful attorney bent on undermining man through the law. When he finally reveals himself to the main character toward the movie’s end, he delivers a self-adulatory monologue during which he proudly states, “I’m a fan of man. I’m a humanist. Maybe the last humanist.”

Speaking of devilish actions, by now most Americans have heard of Clay Duke (no relation!), the gunman who opened fire at a Panama City, Florida school board meeting. We know that he was upset about his wife’s dismissal from a district job and that he wanted to exact revenge on those he deemed responsible. We also know that no innocents were harmed and the only fatality was Duke himself, who, after being wounded by a brave security guard, died by his own hand.

What few know, however, is Duke revealed that he had the philosophical foundation of what we today call “leftism”: On his Facebook page, he listed his religion as “Humanism.”Read more

Some of you may have missed this story since it was published on the day after Christmas (and a Sunday at that), but Obama’s death panels are back, this time via the president’s fiat regulatory powers. Since it was easy to have missed, I’ve decided to post the story today (Monday) so that more people might see it now that Christmas and the weekend both are over.

You might recall the end of life care policies that were once in Obamacare. You might also remember the political firestorm these death panels whipped up. The pressure was heavy enough that the Democrats removed the policy from the final Obamacare bill.

Well, now that Obamacare is passed, Obama is slipping these death panels right back into existence by ordering Medicare to just make the policy a new rule under updated Medicare regulations.Read more

It’s funny how lefties always consider themselves the more “logical,” the more civilized,” and more “adult” side of the argument. Why, they just want to have an adult debate to explain how correct their ideas are, right? Well, they might unless they work for MSNBC, apparently. Especially if they’re Ed Schultz. Ed Schultz, you see, doesn’t want a debate at all. In fact he refuses to even talk to the other side. We don’t have to surmise this to be true, either. He said so.

Just prior to Christmas, Schultz told his radio audience that he doesn’t have “righties” on his TV show because he’s “sick of ‘em.”

You do not see Republican senators on The Ed Show on MSNBC. I don’t want ‘em! I don’t want ‘em and I’m getting sick of righties on my show anyway. I’m getting sick, I mean, we might have 2011, there might not be any freakin’ righties. I’m sick of ‘em!

Not long afterward he expanded on that theme in a way that might seem to be muddying the waters.Read more

Jesse Jackson, Jr., was at one time one of those politicians that was on TV and radio as much as humanly possible. Like his father, it wasn’t a good idea for one’s personal safety to get between either Jackson and a TV camera or microphone. But since the end of 2008 Junior’s media appearances have been relatively scarce. So what happened? At least two scandals can be identified to have worked to force Junior into hiding.

First, and worst, was Jackson’s connection to the scandal surrounding the arrest (and later conviction, and soon retrial) of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. As the facts about Blago’s attempts to sell for personal gain Barack Obama’s Senate seat came to light, it became clear that Jackson, Jr. was somehow mixed up in the whole mess. Junior has, of course, insisted that he had no part in trying to buy his way into a Senate seat, but the rumors and facts of the case were embarrassing enough to cause Junior to shy from public exposure in hopes that it would all calm down.

During the Blago trial a millions in payoffs to Blago in conjunction with a Jackson, Jr. Senate nod caused Junior no end of heartburn. While Junior hasn’t been charged with anything, his political career might still falter due to the second Blago trial coming early this year as more facts come out on his involvement in the whole affair.Read more

Not long ago I saw a television documentary on the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. I have, in addition, read any number of books on the period of the 1920s and 30s. The lesson it teaches is that the Nazis did not suddenly arise, take control, and impose a totalitarian government on Germans. It was a matter of slow progress until October 29, 1929 when the U.S. stock market crashed.

The affect was worldwide. In Europe where nations were still trying to revive from the devastating impact of World War One, it created havoc similar to the Great Depression that gripped America for a decade.

In the wake of the 1919 Versailles Treaty, a defeated Germany had been hit with huge reparations. The Weimar Republic was struggling to return the nation to some degree of stability.

The destabilization of the worldwide financial system created the chaos needed for Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists to gain seats in the government and when Hitler was named Chancellor it opened the door to total control.Read more

The good folks at LatmaTV are back with a rousing Palestinian Christmas carol. It is suitably titled “Jihad Bells” and gives us a first hand look at why Christians have been “mysteriously” disappearing from The PA controlled areas and in the Muslim world.

Could it be that the Muzzies persecute them mercilessly? Let’s find out…

Throughout the debate over the extension of the tax rates, aka the Bush tax cuts, we have witnessed a concerted effort by Democrats and Progressives to demonize the wealthy. This demonization has crossed over into the on-going argument over the Estate Tax, aka the Death Tax. At every turn we are made to feel that the wealthy have no right to “monopolize” all of their riches when government could use a goodly portion of that wealth to “help” the down-trodden, the disenfranchised and the less fortunate. Truth be told, the government can’t do anything equal to what the wealthy in the private sector do to “help” those individuals.

Before we get into the issue of the rich and their wealth, let’s dispense with the myth that government can create jobs. Oh sure, the government can create employment through expanding the reach of government; by expanding government as an entity, but those jobs require an increase in taxation on the rank-and-file citizenry in order to cover the paychecks issued to those government workers. Government – aside from the blood-money interest produced by TARP and the ill-gotten gains of government through the hostile takeover of General Motors – cannot create wealth, ergo; it does not have the ability to amass wealth in order to expand; in order to create jobs. Simply put, when government creates a job, that employee is paid by the taxpayer, not the government; that employee is paid by the private sector.

And like those ancient oracles, these men of honor know better than others what that star means. That’s why we should once again listen to The Wise Men, for what they have to say is unprecedented.

On November 8, a mystery missile lit the dusk skies off the coast of Los Angeles. After about 3 days of swearing that no one knew what it was, suddenly the Pentagon swore first that it wasn’t a threat, then that it was “just an airplane contrail,” and that anyone who said different had fallen for an “optical illusion.”Read more

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-By Warner Todd Huston
The theme of the race for mayor has thus far been twofold. One, will Rahm Emanuel be allowed to stay on the ballot, and two, will there be too many African Americans in the running